


A Unified Theory of Nezumi

by Crowmunculus



Category: No. 6 (Anime & Manga), No. 6 - All Media Types, No. 6 - Asano Atsuko
Genre: Character Analysis, Gen, Grief, I deserve a PhD for this, M/M, Meta, Nezumi Please Seek Therapy, Not Fic, PTSD, READ THE NOVELS!!!, Trauma, novels canon, survivor's guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:20:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26281810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crowmunculus/pseuds/Crowmunculus
Summary: A runaway meta prompted by a tumblr ask: "If you feel like elaborating more, I have another thing that is stuck in my mind—Nezumi’s guilt. I see him as someone with a great amount of survivor’s guilt and then the Correctional Facility shit and Safu adds to it and it breaks my heart that he keeps taking on weight after weight. Do you also think that to forgive himself is part of his healing? Cuz he cannot be forever held accountable for someone else’s choices."
Relationships: Nezumi/Shion (No. 6)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21





	A Unified Theory of Nezumi

**Author's Note:**

> This is adapted from [a tumblr post](https://crowmunculus.tumblr.com/post/624002822017581056/thank-you-for-the-reply-i-thoroughly-enjoy-stuff), originally posted 7/18/2020. It contains multiple links to other metas I've written on tumblr, but I might eventually upload some of those to AO3 too and would then edit the links accordingly. Someday I might get ambitious and try to add actual citations and footnotes to this monster like it's a proper academic paper, just to punish myself. 
> 
> This pulls most heavily from the novels and might not make much sense if you've only seen the anime. You should be able to follow along fine if you've read the manga, though No. 6 Beyond is referenced a few times and that includes scenes that never made it to the manga.
> 
> All novels quotes, as always, are courtesy of [Nostalgia on 9th Avenue](http://9th-ave.blogspot.com/p/no-6.html).

Nezumi absolutely has survivor's guilt, I wrote [a post that brings that up](https://crowmunculus.tumblr.com/post/74120273532/ive-talked-about-this-before-but-it-still-gets-to) back in...jeeze, early 2014. He feels guilty for surviving the Massacre, he feels guilty for bringing Shion to the Correctional Facility, he feels guilty for killing the dying man in the Correctional Facility, he feels guilty for not being able to do anything for Safu except kill her, and given his surprise at Shion's insistence that he'd open the window all over again if he had the chance I think he blames himself for “ruining” Shion's life and feels guilty for that too.

I'm gonna immediately go off topic but it's relevant I promise - I love Nezumi's moral compass, and I think a lot of people misinterpret his character and don't think he has one (and he is a hypocrite about it sometimes so you can't always tell from the outside.) Nezumi splits everything into dichotomies, so there's Bad, and there's Good, and it's clear at multiple points that he believes killing is Bad, regardless of circumstance. It's also strongly hinted that he's killed people before in self-defense, though I think it's important to note that the only times we see him kill someone onscreen are his mercy kill of the dying man in the CF, which he still considers murder (vol 5, ch 2), and when he plants the bomb that destroys the Mother computer and Safu along with it, at Safu's urging. (vol 8, ch 1)

It's not Nezumi but _Shion_ who outright murders someone onscreen! Nezumi is more likely to bluff and put on a show to convince people he's a cold-blooded killer, such as when he holds a soldier hostage and threatens to kill him before Rashi actually kills him (vol 7, ch 4), and this scene earlier:

> "Don't move. Don't make a sound. Make a noise, and I'll kill you." Nezumi's voice was low, heavy, and cold. It was the voice of a murderer. It agitated fear inside the person, and sealed any attempt at a struggle.
> 
> Shion was yet again faced with the truth that Nezumi was an incredibly talented actor.
> 
> (vol 7, ch 1)

All he does is knock the researchers out and shove them into a locker. He does this multiple times in the CF, temporarily incapacitating instead of maiming or killing. Later on (vol 7, ch 3) he's disturbed by Shion not showing remorse for injuring the CF soldiers who get in their way - “We have no choice,” Shion says, and Nezumi believes it too, it's what he's been trying to get Shion to believe, but now that Shion is acting on what he's been taught it upsets Nezumi. (Hold this thought.)

So, by his own dichotomous thinking, because he's killed people and hurt people and turned away from people he could have saved, Nezumi himself is Bad. No. 6 is Bad, and killing is bad, but Nezumi sees no way to destroy No. 6 without killing. So he takes it on himself – just as he takes on the responsibility for revenge for everyone No. 6 has murdered, he accepts that he needs to be a Bad person and mar his own soul if he's to get that revenge. I feel like he's resigned himself to being the necessary villain in the story of his life (and Shion's life) because he doesn't see himself as a kind or righteous person though he secretly highly values those traits, as we see with how he thinks about Shion (while on the outside he's slamming Shion for those exact same traits, in part because he's scared and lashing out, and in part because he thinks Shion needs to become more callous to survive the West Block and is genuinely concerned for his safety.)

In the anime when Nezumi talks about the wasps emerging all at once in the spring and puts on his gruesome little show of acting like a dying victim, he comes off to me like an old-fashioned gaycoded villain with his flamboyant cruelty. 

Really, I get that vibe whenever he's talking at length about the wasps destroying No. 6. Another example is vol 2, ch 5 after Shion's “third way” speech, but with less humor in it, so he comes off less like an animated Disney villain with an evil musical number that time:

> "I'll have none of it." There was not a remnant of a smile left in his face as Nezumi said those words. "We can't have that place disappear so easily just yet. We have to let it keep being the way it is, let it dress itself up and eat a bellyful of good food, let it grow fat. I can just imagine how great it must feel to slice that belly open with one blow. I'm going to pull out all of its gorged innards and expose it to the light. I can't wait. Yeah, spring is going to be great. I'm quite excited."

The whole scene of Nezumi kicking Shion off his chair and threatening him with a knife in the same chapter can fall under this category of playing the villain too.

Originally I was just going to include the actual text for one more example scene but I looked into another and hit gold on my good friend wikipedia and I'm losing my mind:

> Nezumi was no devil. He knew this more certainly than anyone else. Again and again, his life had been saved, and been rescued from pressing danger. He had clung to the hand that was extended to him, and it had pulled him up. His life was not the only thing that had been saved ― his soul, in the form that it was meant to be ― had also been saved. He believed so.
> 
> [...]
> 
> Nezumi slowly dropped his gaze, and murmured as if in song.
> 
> "I am the spirit that denies. Yes, I am all things which you call Sin, Destruction, or Evil." [1]
> 
> "What's that?" Inukashi twitched his nose. "Shion, what the hell is this deranged actor saying?"
> 
> "Mephistopheles."
> 
> "Huh? What's that? Is it edible?"
> 
> "He appears in the book _Faust_. He's ― a demon."
> 
> "So a devil is just reciting a devil's lines. Perfectly fitting."
> 
> "No, like I said, Nezumi isn't―"
> 
> (vol 4, ch 1; [footnote link)](http://9th-ave.blogspot.com/2011/11/novel-no-6-vol-4-ch1-b.html#v4c12)

So I already got the Faust reference, and I don't remember what made me look it up again anyway but I'm glad I did, thank you wikipedia for my life:

> Although Mephistopheles appears to Faustus as a demon – a worker for Lucifer – critics claim that he does not search for men to corrupt, but **comes to serve and ultimately collect the souls of those who are already damned**. Farnham explains, "Nor does Mephistophiles first appear to Faustus as a devil who walks up and down on earth to tempt and corrupt any man encountered. He appears because he senses in Faustus' magical summons that Faustus is already corrupt, that indeed he is already 'in danger to be damned'."[[5]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mephistopheles#cite_note-5)
> 
> Mephistopheles is already trapped in his own Hell by serving the Devil. He warns Faustus of the choice he is making by "selling his soul" to the devil: "Mephistophilis, an agent of Lucifer, appears and at first advises Faust not to forgo the promise of heaven to pursue his goals". [[6]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mephistopheles#cite_note-6)
> 
> ([Wikipedia page for Mephistopheles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mephistopheles))
> 
> (emphasis mine)

Is that not Nezumi's understanding of himself to a T? Nezumi isn't the corrupting force; No. 6 is already damned, and he's just the cleanup crew tasked with the dirty work of dragging it down to Hell. Contrast with how Shion thinks of Nezumi - by telling him to see with his own eyes and think with his own head - as having _saved_ his soul from what would have been the certain damnation of growing into an obedient, complacent No. 6 elite.

My other favorite example of Nezumi playing the villain is in vol 8, ch 3 when Shion accuses him of using Safu:

> Nezumi stared at Shion. _Used her? Didn't hesitate at all? Sacrificed her? Shion, you really think so?_
> 
> But is he wrong?
> 
> He heard a voice questioning him back. It was not Shion's. It was his own voice. _Did you not use her? Did you not sacrifice her? Did you not prioritize your own wishes over saving another life?_
> 
> _Didn't you? Didn't you? Didn't you?_
> 
> [...]
> 
> Nezumi looked away from Shion. He couldn't hold the other boy's gaze.
> 
> "I needed you. I knew that without your memory and judgment skills, it would be impossible to get around inside the Facility. You were my last, and my best trump card. I thought for a long time how I would use you, and... this is the answer. The thing about Safu was just an excuse. I just... used you and her to satisfy my own purposes."
> 
> _Yes, Shion, you aren't wrong. I betrayed you. I was tricking you all along. You didn't get me involved; it was the other way around. I set the cunning trap._
> 
> "My plan was a success. Look at this confusion. The Correctional Facility is crumbling. Shion, I―I directed things to proceed according to my intentions. Frankly, I didn't expect it to turn out so well. You served your purpose a hundred times better than I expected. You were... really useful to me."
> 
> Shion stood up unsteadily.
> 
> "Nezumi, what are you talking about?"
> 
> "I never believed that Safu would be safe. The moment she was imprisoned, I knew the possibility of her escape was close to nil. Shion― saving Safu never mattered to me. When I planted the bomb in the mother, I was only thinking of destroying it and getting out of there as soon as possible. That was it."
> 
> The superfibre cloth slid from his neck and fell at his feet. Had he been bowing his head unwittingly? Nezumi stooped to pick the fabric up, and stared intently at the boy in front of him.
> 
> "I'm not asking you to forgive me. It's not something I can apologize for and be done with."
> 
> "What are you talking about?" Shion said loudly. "I'm not getting a single word."
> 
> _Really? Can you really not understand?_
> 
> _You're a liar, Shion. You do get it. You understand every single word. And you'll never forgive me. You'll lose faith in me and loathe me. Or would you―_

[I _adore_ this scene! ](https://asofternezushi.tumblr.com/post/71599980727/my-last-words-will-be-yeah-i-had-that-coming#notes)Look at those uncertain pauses and him stumbling over his words! Nezumi even thinks he's fooling himself and of course immediately after this he takes a bullet for Shion and urges Shion to leave him behind! I think he _was_ using Shion, but he _also_ wanted to save Safu, and feels horrible about her death. Two things can be real, Nezumi!!!

So this scene, this scene is Nezumi flattening his own complicated, imperfect behavior into something purely selfish and Bad for multiple reasons: to get Shion angry enough to get him to move his traumatized ass out of the burning building they're in, and to absolve Shion of any wrongdoing within the CF because Nezumi was the bad one all along, he's the one who used Shion and made him into a killer. And then he's hoping it will conveniently make Shion hate him to solve that pesky issue of being in love and wanting to be with Shion – if he can't convince himself out of it, maybe he can convince Shion. Nezumi in this moment _hates_ himself, can't even look Shion in the eyes, lets his damn superfibre fall off and expose his neck, is so distracted he doesn't realize they're both in danger until it's too late.

Note Nezumi saying here "I'm not asking you to forgive me. It's not something I can apologize for and be done with" and contrast to his thoughts earlier, after Shion killed Rashi:

> _I'm the one who should be asking whether I'll be forgiven. I should be the one begging for forgiveness, not you._
> 
> "Shoulder it," he whispered. The words tore through his gritted teeth and spilled from his lips. Shion's eyes moved slowly. They narrowed slightly, as if attempting to focus on Nezumi.
> 
> "Shoulder it― shoulder it, and live on." They were words for himself, not Shion.
> 
> _Bear your sin, and live._
> 
> _Shion, I'm sorry. I made you bear the burden, one so big it's making your spine creak. Would I be forgiven one day? Would you forgive me for what I did to you?_
> 
> (vol 7, ch 4)

SO back to that thought about Nezumi being upset at Shion's blasé utilitarian attitude regarding hurting the CF soldiers - Nezumi believes that he is Bad and Shion is Good. It's easier to feel like he understands Shion when he only allows himself to see Shion's kindness and capacity for forgiveness, instead of having to confront that Shion is as complicated and flawed a human as Nezumi is himself.

Shion is less frightening when he's predictable (though he's still hard to predict when he's being naive and kind because Nezumi has so little experience with that) but more than that, Nezumi put Shion on a pedestal the night they met as the one and only example of genuine selfless kindness he's seen in living memory, and giving that up – seeing Shion as a fallible human just as capable of cruelty as he is of kindness – means accepting that the world is a lot more complicated than Good and Bad, kill or be killed, inside the wall and outside of it. As long as he's living in a dichotomous world, he _needs_ to believe in that two-dimensional ideal of Shion because otherwise it would be like giving up on believing that any goodness exists in the world at all.

> Bomb set.
> 
> Nezumi shrugged his superfibre cape off, and cover his head with it. He kept retreating until his foot touched Shion's shoulder.
> 
> "Nezumi."
> 
> "What?"
> 
> "Now it's like you're shielding me. I might end up safe, but you―"
> 
> "Idiot. Who the fuck cares about our positions at this point? Stop wasting your breath."
> 
> _How stupid can he get?_
> 
> _What an idiot._ But it was just like Shion. No matter the situation, he never forgot about others. It was just like him, indeed.
> 
> Relief welled up from the bottom of his chest.
> 
> (vol 7, ch 3 – shortly after Shion saying “We have no choice”)

.

> Shion's eyes focused on Nezumi. Joy ignited within them. A smile spread widely across his face. A sigh of relief spilled from his lips. The pistol slid from his hand.
> 
> "Thank goodness you're safe. But―you're bleeding a lot. Are you alright? We have to bind that wound, at least."
> 
> Shion took off his sweater and started ripping the sleeve.
> 
> "This is all I have, but it might serve as a bandage. Give me your shoulder, and I'll bind it."
> 
> It was the usual Shion. His usual tone, his usual gaze. He was naive and foolish, ignorant, idealistic, unbelievably honest, and warm.
> 
> Nezumi's heart ached. He felt burning at the back of his eyes.
> 
> (vol 7, ch 4 – directly after Shion killed Rashi)

Funny enough, Nezumi clinging to his idealized version of Shion _also_ fucks with his dichotomous thinking because kind, naive Shion is proof that No. 6 can't be completely evil. Nezumi tries to think of Shion as the sole exception but is troubled upon realizing that Shion's loved ones are similarly kind and honest people. (Beyond, ch 2) Everything about Shion challenges Nezumi's way of thinking, and since that way of thinking is entirely sourced in trauma and the coping mechanisms that keep him alive, it would take a _dramatic_ restructuring of how Nezumi sees himself, the world, and his place in the world for him to understand Shion, and stay by his side. (Which, welcome to the club, Nezumi, that's what Shion spends the entire series doing lol.)

Nezumi carries a lot of guilt, and I think I made a good case for him also having a very warped sense of self in that he _doesn't_ have a sense of self beyond his trauma and the mythologies he created to understand and give meaning to that trauma. His dichotomous thinking applies to himself – he has trouble understanding that he can have more than one motive behind his actions, that salvation and destruction can exist simultaneously within one person and even in the same action. Healing from trauma requires, by necessity, compassion for yourself, but Nezumi doesn't know who his “self” is separate from his anger/trauma/hate:

> Nezumi raked a hand through his hair, then inhaled and exhaled deeply one more time. For him, living had always been about revenge and nothing else. His own survival, the fact that he was alive was revenge towards No. 6. One day, one day not so far off, he would live and survive to deliver the fatal blow to No. 6―that had always been the only thing on his mind. He cared about nothing else. His hatred and loathing towards No. 6 only mounted, never waned. But he did waver.
> 
> Revenge was not the only thing in his heart. There was also something almost entirely different―something that existed completely unrelated to No. 6.
> 
> Nezumi himself could not grasp what that something was.
> 
>  _That’s why I waver._ He wavered as he wondered about himself after he had fulfilled his revenge―would he be completely emptied, or would he still be full? Would there still be a stubborn core of hatred left inside him? He wavered.
> 
> (Beyond, ch 4)

Nezumi being an actor is a purposeful narrative choice to clue the audience in to how much of what he does and says is following pre-decided scripts. All Nezumi has ever done is play a role, whether he’s using sex appeal as Eve, making himself out to be this stoic bad boy lone wolf like Inukashi initially believes, or playing the villain for Shion. Initially the only time he’s not wearing a mask is when he’s alone at home and there’s no one else around to see, but then Shion is there and dragging out all these emotions Nezumi didn’t even realize he still had (like the furniture he’d forgotten he had buried under his books lololol) and none of his masks work anymore. Shion sees a part of him that Nezumi himself didn’t know existed and is struggling to see, because Nezumi himself doesn’t know who he is when he’s not playing a role. He never had a chance to learn to be anything but an agent of destruction and vengeance. Who he _really_ is, under everything, is someone neither wholly bad nor wholly good, just like Shion, and he can’t grasp that yet.

I’m terrible at organizing my thoughts in a coherent manner but cutting back to his guilt over the CF, when Nezumi was telling Shion that there was nothing else they could have done for Safu, I think that he still needed to internalize that himself. He convinces himself that he came to the CF for destruction alone (vol 8, ch 3), but whatever else their raid on the CF turned into, at the very start when he received Karan's note, Nezumi's involvement was primarily – if not solely – because he feared for Shion's life (vol 2, ch 5.)

He doesn't start to actively talk or think about destroying the CF as a blow to No. 6 until later. (First mention I'm finding is vol 5, ch 2, where Shion is saying that if Nezumi didn't believe Safu was still alive, he wouldn't have come, and Nezumi calls him naive; then vol 6, ch 1, telling Sasori that he brought Shion along to help destroy No. 6; and vol 6, ch 3, when he tells Sasori and Rou he's planning on destroying the CF.)

True, he was never focused on Safu, especially not the way Shion was, but for all his tough guy posturing, Nezumi is not a demon, and he values human life. If it had been possible to rescue Safu once they arrived, he would have gone through the effort. He wouldn't have, for a total stranger – that's how you drive yourself crazy or get killed, living in the West Block where people die violent, needless deaths on the daily – but for someone Shion loves? If he couldn't talk Shion out of it, he'd at least make sure Shion didn't go alone, which is the literal canon anyway.

Also another favorite scene:

>  _Give me strength. Please._ He prayed, but not to God. He prayed to the girl with the wilful gaze. _Safu, give us strength. A little more, just a little strength for us..._
> 
> (vol 8, ch 3)

I still hold that Nezumi and Safu could have become good friends. They meet so briefly yet Nezumi respects her and empathizes with her, two things it's difficult to get him to do. Ok one more fav scene:

> “Friends," Shion repeated. "They're the first friends I've made since coming here. Well, not that I had many friends back in No. 6," he added as an afterthought. "I think Safu was the only one."
> 
> "She said she wanted to sleep with you. You don't call that 'friends'."
> 
> He remembered the ends of her short hair that draped prettily on the back of her neck.
> 
> _Shion, I want to have sex with you._
> 
> She had put her all into this confession, and Shion had not been able to handle it. _What a guy you've fallen for, huh_ , he remarked in his mind to the girl he barely knew. For some reason, he was suddenly overcome with the urge to laugh.
> 
> "What?"
> 
> Shion cocked his head to the side. Two mice sitting atop a pile of books tilted their heads too, as if to imitate him. Nezumi burst out laughing. He squatted to the ground, and gave in fully to the wave of mirth that bubbled up inside him.
> 
> (vol 2, ch 2)

(Hey Nezumi...could it be you've also fallen for this guy and relate to Safu's frustration at his airheadedness?)

So about people dying needless, violent deaths in the West Block on the daily - Nezumi had to become numb to it if he wanted to survive as a vulnerable orphaned child already bogged down with trauma. He was helpless to do anything for other people, so he didn’t try. Other people became concepts instead of individuals, because it’s easier to hold detached anger about the suffering of others than it is to have to grieve for each individual life lost.

When Shion arrives in the West Block, he of course doesn’t understand this. No. 6 also mandated its citizens not care about the suffering of other people, but did so by hiding that any suffering existed, the opposite of how the inundation of human tragedy in the West Block creates inaction due to emotional fatigue. Shion has always been special among his peers for the part of him that wanted to rebel against conformity - and eventually did, when he took Nezumi in that first night. Shion sees people as individuals, or at least tries to, and challenges Nezumi to do so as well.

After Shion recklessly saves Rico’s life (vol 2, ch 2) Nezumi says to Shion:

> "If that kid had died, there would be more to eat for Kalan and the other girl. Even for Rico― wouldn't you have thought it would be better for him to die rather than grow up in constant hunger? Maybe you haven't actually done them a favour at all."

But this is only a few paragraphs after Nezumi, in the privacy of his own thoughts, was relieved that he didn’t have to see a child die, and he relates Shion’s reckless kindness here back to their first meeting where he, too, would have died if Shion had not intervened at great risk to himself. He tells Shion off, but internally he’s thinking of Shion being _above him_ in some ways, with his ability to help strangers with no guarantee of safety or expectation of reward. He values human life, but he can’t afford to let himself feel it.

After they’ve interrogated Fura and learned about the upcoming Manhunt, there’s a scene where Nezumi baits Inukashi away from Shion and admits that he’s wondering if he should warn the other people in the West Block. Inukashi is taken aback: 

> "Where would they run?"
> 
> Nezumi didn't answer. His eyes were cast down, his gaze fixed on the tip of his boot. At a glance, it looked like his mind was racing with thoughts; then again, it also looked like he was hesitating to give an answer.
> 
> "If the nice folks over in No. 6 are gonna put up a bulletin saying 'We will begin the Hunt at so-and-so day from this time until that time', you go on ahead and tell everybody," Inukashi said. "If that's the only time the Hunt is gonna occur, they can run. But you don't know, do ya? You say you think it's in a day or two, but that's just your hunch. It can happen in five minutes. It can happen in a week. If a tip as unreliable as that was enough to make people run away, they wouldn't be living here in the first place. They have nowhere to run. They have nowhere else they can live. That's why everyone's hanging onto this place like their life depended on it."
> 
> While he spoke, Inukashi thought to himself that Nezumi should know this already down to the marrow of his bones.
> 
> (vol 4, ch 4)

Nezumi has legitimate reasons for not going out of his way to help other people. It’s not pure callousness, it’s the logistical problem of what’s even possible to do. People live in the West Block because they’re all trapped there, and short of tremendous structural change, any help he tries to give would be a temporary bandaid. This is hard for Shion to accept, partly from ignorance, but also in big part because of his idealistic bleeding heart and his belief in the moral mandate that if he can do something to help, he should. And there is still value in helping people when you can, even if you can’t do anything to get them out of the situation that will necessitate them needing help again in the future, but this is one point where Nezumi and Shion’s philosophies differ where neither one of them is fully wrong or right.

> If he learned to lean on someone, he would never be able to walk on his own again. The helping hand was always fickle, and disappeared just as suddenly as it was offered. That was how things were.
> 
> (vol 3, ch 4; I die at the implication that Nezumi speaks from experience lol bye.)

The above quote sums up Nezumi’s philosophy, and is what he tried to teach Shion (despite always making sure to swoop in and rescue Shion at the last second if necessary - but he doesn’t leave Shion to fend for himself out of cruelty, he does it to try and teach Shion how to survive on his own in case there comes a time Nezumi isn’t there, so just letting him die would defeat the purpose of teaching him life skills, huh.) No one else should expect his help, and he shouldn’t expect help from anyone else. But it’s not for lack of caring about human suffering, as is clear from Nezumi wondering if he should do more to warn people about the Manhunt.

In response to Inukashi, Nezumi says this:

> "You're right. You shouldn't even have to say this. It's just―"
> 
> "Just what?"
> 
> "Shion hasn't mentioned it."
> 
> "Mentioned what? About letting everyone know so they can escape?"
> 
> "Yeah."
> 
> "Well, it sure sounds like something the airhead would say―but I mean, Shion doesn't know much about the Hunt, does he?"
> 
> "He's catching on."
> 
> Nezumi got down from the table, and picked up a pebble that was lying near the wall.
> 
> "He's slow to get the hint sometimes, but he's not stupid. He's probably realized exactly what kind of hunt the Hunt is. Though it probably hasn't sunk in for him yet."
> 
> (vol 4, ch 4)

Nezumi perceives that Shion is changing, is becoming more pragmatic and focused on his own survival and goals, and while that’s exactly what Nezumi tried to teach him, it also disturbs Nezumi because he values Shion’s idealism, and is often so blinded by it that he can’t see the rest of Shion.

HOWEVER, other times Nezumi’s perception of Shion flipflops and instead of idealizing him, he devalues him, and transposes his feelings for No. 6 onto Shion instead. One good example is vol 4, ch 4, when Shion tries for a heartfelt love confession but accidentally triggers the beejesus out of Nezumi’s PTSD when he touches his neck. Nezumi realizes he’s gotten too complacent, he’s let Shion get too close to him, [and he assigns malice to Shion’s actions that I think is pretty obviously not there.](https://crowmunculus.tumblr.com/post/82035308001/i-was-reading-the-no6-novels-and-i-got-really)

Another excellent scene demonstrating this is when after Shion fails to kill the dying man in the basement of the CF, and Nezumi takes over for him, Nezumi says:

> "Then restrain your arrogance. Respect death as it is. Don't think so highly of yourself, and don't think you can be the one to give people a painless death. Don't ever put your fingers around someone's throat again."
> 
> (vol 5, ch 2)

This is after Nezumi saying that the man who died, Shion, and he himself are all “pieces of shit,” and that the man should not have died peacefully. The following scenes probably best showcase the worst of Nezumi’s cruelty out of the whole series. He’s not purposefully playing the villain this time, I don’t think his reaction here is something he has any control over or has any agenda about. He’s triggered to high hell and hating himself for doing what he saw as “murder,” and he takes it out on Shion, while at the same time imploring Shion to not become a murderer himself.

Shion questions Nezumi, saying "Is it wrong to be released from suffering in the last moment of your life? Is it wrong to die smiling?"

> "Shion, do you still not understand? If you think of the dozens―no, hundreds by now, if you think of the people who have been killed already... what happens to those hundreds of lives, their hatred, their resentment? Are you gonna make excuses, and pretend it never existed?"
> 
> "No. It wouldn't happen that way. That would never be tolerated. But that's what the survivors are supposed to do. They live, they remember, and they tell others. They tell the truth of what happened in this place. It's a job for the survivors―for us. We'll engrave it into our memory, and never forget. But―but at least―for those who are already dying... if only they could go without hatred, if only we could―"
> 
> "Grant them an eternal slumber?"
> 
> "Yeah."
> 
> "Idealistic, aren't you."
> 
> "I don't think it's wrong. I don't think what you did is murder, at least. I just can't see it that way."
> 
> (vol 5, ch 2; as I am writing this I am just realizing the extra “ow” factor in later when Shion accuses Nezumi of _murdering_ Safu, when this was previously his perception of a mercy kill)

Shortly after this, Shion mentions that he left a half-finished book on their bed: "It's a story that takes place in some faraway land. About a man who sells his soul to the Devil." Recalling vol 4, ch 1, this is another Faust reference. Remember the argument that Mephistopheles is there not to tempt Faust, but to warn him? I feel that that’s a role Nezumi takes on throughout the series with how he relates to Shion, with him trying to steer Shion away from succumbing to corruption.

Nezumi then closes his eyes for several moments after Shion mentions the book, and then says he looks forward to watching it:

> "Watching you," Nezumi replied. "Remembering is the role of the survivors―your own words. I wonder how far you'd be able to act on them? I'll be sure to watch carefully whether you seriously try to remember everything you see from here on out, or force yourself to forget. I'll see it right through to the end, when those lips go from spewing pretty words to twisting into a scowl."
> 
> His tone was flat and regular. There was no hint of sarcasm, anger, or irritation. Though devoid of all emotion, his voice, for some reason, was heavy. Shion clenched his fingers, and posed a question.
> 
> "Do you not believe me?"
> 
> "If it's about your memorization abilities, then I have absolute faith in that."
> 
> "Which means you have doubts when it comes to my own humanity."
> 
> "Quite a few."
> 
> Nezumi's fingers reached out and pinched Shion's chin. His eyes narrowed, and their grey light intensified.
> 
> "I've always thought we could never live in harmony," he said, "that no matter how much we lived together, how many experiences we shared, I would end my life without ever having understood you. Shion, I'm going to tell you the truth. Sometimes... I feel hatred towards you to the point that I want to kill you. Just happens sometimes."
> 
> "I knew that."
> 
> "You knew?"
> 
> "I kind of realized that you―hated me."
> 
> Nezumi's fingertips dug into his chin.
> 
> "You're like No. 6 itself. It flings pretty words and ideologies around, but its true form is something hideous. Like a cruel devil shrouded in a beautiful veil."
> 
> "And you're saying that's me?" Shion grabbed Nezumi's wrist, and wrenched his fingers free from his chin. "Is that my true form, as you see it?"
> 
> There was no answer. Shion gripped Nezumi's wrist tightly.
> 
> (vol 5, ch 2; contrast to Nezumi’s words later, vol 6, ch 5: "I didn't mean to make you feel guilty. I didn't mean to accuse you of any crime. I―can't even imagine wanting to hurt you. I'm sorry. I should have thought a little more about your situation." Nezumi y u like this)

Me reading this scene:

Shion takes affront to this, and for once pushes back against Nezumi’s criticisms of him, insisting that he is entirely different from No. 6 - for one, he has never tried to deceive Nezumi or appear as anything other than who he is.

> "I'm laying it out right in front of you. Your eyes are the ones that are too clouded to see. You cling to the idea of No. 6, and don't try to see me without tying me to it. True form? You must be kidding me," he spat. "When have you ever honestly tried to see me as who I am?"
> 
> His anger boiled, and its heat scalded his body.
> 
>  _You're the one who never tries to take that step towards me. If you hate me so much you want to kill me, then why don't you? You only ever judge my crimes, or loathe me through the lens of No. 6. If you could hurl your emotions at me―me as a human being―then even if it was hatred so potent it was murderous, I would accept it. I've steeled myself to accept it._
> 
>  _Why don't you understand that?_
> 
> (vol 5, ch 2; GET HIS ASS)

Poor Shion isn’t helping his case by gripping Nezumi’s wrist so tightly throughout this that he leaves bruises, but considering that Nezumi has multiple times taken a knife to Shion’s throat and made him bleed I don’t think Nezumi has any ground to stand on lol

Nezumi goes on to say:

> “Shion, you're right: I was too caught up with No. 6 to see you clearly. But it's not always like that. Sometimes―just occasionally―I feel like I've been able catch your tail, grasp a piece of the human you really are."
> 
> "And that's when you want to kill me."
> 
> "No, no that's not it. I don't want to kill―rather..."
> 
> "Rather?"
> 
> "I might even be―afraid."
> 
> "Afraid? What do you mean?"
> 
> Nezumi lapsed into silence. His lips moved slightly.
> 
>  _Monster._
> 
> Was that the word his thin, shapely lips had moved to form?
> 
> Monster?
> 
> (vol 5, ch 2; “thin, shapely lips” Shion control yourself)

This is a good time to point out that to Nezumi, fear and hatred are the same thing. He’s afraid of Shion - because he can’t predict him, because he can’t parse that a person can be good and bad at the same time, because Shion upends his entire black-and-white means of understanding the world and the revenge upon which he has hinged his whole reason for living, because Shion isn’t afraid of him no matter how much Nezumi tries to push him away, because Shion sees Nezumi as being more than his hate and if Nezumi is more than his hate then that means he has to confront all the pain that is masked by that hate. [Because Shion loves him, and despite himself, Nezumi loves him back.](https://crowmunculus.tumblr.com/post/82156975186/do-you-think-nezumi-was-attracted-toin-love-with)

I don’t think Nezumi ever actually hates Shion. Shion infuriates him sometimes, definitely, but never to the point where Nezumi actually hates him. But since he loses control of himself around Shion (and losing control of yourself in the West Block can mean your death), and feels emotions he didn’t even know he still had when he’s with Shion, he’s afraid of Shion, and mistakes that for hate. In Beyond ch 4, Nezumi is described as feeling “a sort of reverent fear” for how Shion always confronts his own self without running away, and I argue that “reverent fear” applies to how he sees so much of the rest of Shion too. Shion’s reckless bravery frightens Nezumi both because he envies the courage and dedication to ideals required _and_ sees it as a magnet for disaster.

Living with an open heart, like Shion does, is a dangerous way to live, and the more time he spends around Shion, the more Shion drags it out of him. More on this later when I talk more about how Nezumi healing will require him to move past dichotomous thinking.

Going back to Nezumi saying “ Don't ever put your fingers around someone's throat again” in vol 5, ch 2, then there’s the scene with Shion strangling Sasori with a rope, which teeeeeechnically isn’t his fingers on his throat but still enough for Nezumi to _beg_ Shion to stop:

> "Shion!" A yell resounded. It was a scream. A strangled voice called his name.
> 
> "Shion! Stop―stop, please―" Nezumi pounced on him from behind. "Stop, I'm begging you. Shion."
> 
> [...]
> 
> "Shion―I told you before. You're not made out to be an executioner." Nezumi picked up the rope, and gripped it in his hand. His lip was cut and painted with his blood. The pair of red lips moved. "―or are you saying this is salvation?"
> 
> "No."
> 
> "Then what? If you were trying to save me, it was none of your business. Shion, don't ever pull a ridiculous stunt like this again. This isn't something for you to do."
> 
> [...]
> 
> "I want you to stay as you are, Shion."
> 
> "Huh? What do you mean?"
> 
> "The Shion I know would never commit a sin. Never." _Fight it_ , Nezumi murmured. "I want you to fight with yourself."
> 
> It was a plea. His tone was strained and imploring. Wasn't this the tone of voice that Nezumi himself despised the most?
> 
> (vol 5, ch 4)

So despite all of Nezumi questioning Shion’s humanity and saying how he’ll be watching to see Shion go from idealism to cynicism, not much later he’s insisting that the Shion he knows is someone who holds true to his ideals, who can only ever be a good, gentle person. He doesn’t want Shion to become a killer for his sake - he says “This isn’t something for you to do” which to me highlights again how Nezumi sees Shion and himself as having different roles to play. Killing isn’t what Shion is supposed to do - that’s Nezumi’s task. Nezumi’s stuck himself in this bizarre role where he’s both the one to warn Shion against taking the path of evil, and (he fears) the one leading him towards it. He later thinks of himself as the corrupting factor that led to Shion killing Rashi:

> Nezumi shifted his eyes to his feet. Maybe I haven't just made him shoulder it. _Maybe I've also hauled it out―hauled out what was dormant in him until now._
> 
> (vol 7, ch 4)

When Shion proposes his “third way” (vol 2, ch 5) Nezumi outwardly belittles him, saying that it’s not like mixing paint; that the only solution is for either No. 6 or the West Block to destroy the other: “That's what fate has set out. Love and hatred, friends and enemies, those within and those outside the wall― and you and I. They can never be as one, and neither can we." But later on in the CF, after Shion says “We have no choice,” Nezumi reflects on how Shion’s proposal of a third way had both intimidated him and inspired fragile hope:

>  _I had scoffed at what you'd said. I scorned it as a naive fantasy. But you know what? I felt intimidated, too. I felt threatened by your naivety, but also your strength to be able to speak of fantasies as if they were plausible. When I heard those words, just for an instant―a short instant, mind you―I could really see a way. A white path rose up behind my eyelids._
> 
>  _The third way._
> 
>  _The way to seek cohabitation rather than retribution, perhaps?_
> 
>  _A way that chooses acceptance over revenge?_
> 
>  _Could such a thing exist, apart from in illusions? Could it exist in the hearts of people?_
> 
> (vol 7, ch 3)

He worries if Shion will still feel that they had no choice if Nezumi were to kill someone - or if Shion were to kill someone. (This is, of course, the chapter before Shion kills Rashi.)

After Shion kills Rashi (vol 7, ch 4), the first thing Nezumi says to him is “You protected me.” He tells Shion he would have done the same, that it was kill or be killed, that it was justified. But he regrets the words as soon as they leave his mouth - it’s not what he wants to say to Shion. He never does figure out what the right thing to say is, because then Shion puts the gun to his own head.

Shion, as he’s asking if he can be forgiven, compares himself to No. 6 just as Nezumi had earlier when he was saying that sometimes he hated Shion enough to want to kill him. (vol 5, ch 2) And Nezumi, who hadn’t been able to gather the energy to escape Rashi, hadn’t been able to stand up and stop Shion from killing Rashi to begin with, finds the strength to tackle Shion to the ground and smack the shit out of him before collapsing on him and crying.

[Here is a truly ancient post I wrote in 2012](https://crowmunculus.tumblr.com/post/26038104026/so-i-wrote-this-rant-a-couple-days-ago-because-i) about how Nezumi had been prepared to die, when Rashi pointed the gun straight at his heart, and how he actually relaxed into Shion’s hold and allowed himself to receive affection and give it in return. Nezumi thinks to himself: _“I won’t close my eyes. Not until the last moment”_ but after Shion shoots Rashi, Nezumi closes his eyes and turns away, thinks about how he doesn’t want to open his eyes and have to confront a reality where Shion is a killer for his sake. He was more ready to accept his own death than he was to accept Shion killing for him.

So on Shion’s side, Shion struggles throughout the Manhunt and inside the CF even before Sasori and Rashi to hold onto his horror instead of letting himself acclimate to suffering or forgetting it:

> Among them were those who lay still, those who shook in the cold, and those groaning in pain. Without exception, they were all dragged out and herded into one spot.
> 
>  _What's going to happen to them? What's going to happen, what's going to happen? I don't know. Even if I did, there would be nothing I could do to help it._
> 
> His emotions began to grow numb, starting from the extremities. He was getting used to atrocity. He was becoming unperceptive to brutal murder. His thoughts slowed and became sluggish. The death of others no longer fazed him.
> 
> Shion reached out and grabbed Nezumi's arm. He made sure he could feel the body of flesh at his fingertips.
> 
>  _Nezumi, keep me as the human I am._
> 
> (vol 4, ch 5; this is immediately before Nezumi warns him that the CF might change him)

This is actually a normal and healthy human reaction to danger. When your life is in danger and your brain goes into fight or flight mode, your focus narrows to your own survival, and the survival of your loved ones, over everything else. The thing about it is, though, that once the danger has passed, you have this emotional backlog waiting to be felt. But in the West Block, the danger never passes. Nezumi - and everyone else in the West Block - is never given the chance to breathe or grieve before the next crisis forces them into survival mode again. Living with that kind of unresolved trauma creates even more problems in the form of trauma disorders like PTSD, substance abuse, self-harm and suicide, and the perpetuation of further violence. You can try and repress and ignore it, like Nezumi does, but you can’t numb the bad feelings without numbing the good ones, too. Of _course_ Nezumi is an emotional mess.

Nezumi doesn’t see No. 6 as containing individual people (and containing children), instead of being this uniformly evil entity, because doing so would upend his entire belief system and all of the safeguards in place to keep him from having to actually grieve. But he _does_ see Shion as an individual, as much as he’s initially seeing an idealized (or devalued) form of Shion, and the hidden truth of Nezumi that he himself can’t grasp is that when he loves, he loves fiercely. He just can’t afford to let himself love, when all that’s ever brought him is loss.

But he loves Shion and it shows in his actions: constantly in the CF, he pushes Shion to leave and save himself, such as telling him to run when he’s fighting Sasori (vol 5, ch 4; Shion calls himself a burden, and then Nezumi does too, but when it comes to Shion often Nezumi’s actions don’t match his words, and also he doesn’t want Sasori paying too much attention to Shion); when he shields Shion from the bomb in the air vent with his own body (vol 7, ch 3); when he shoves Shion out of the elevator first, after blowing up the Mother computer, when it’s at risk of falling down the elevator shaft and does so as soon as Nezumi scrambles out (vol 8, ch 3); and when Nezumi urges Shion to leave him behind and run after Nezumi was shot and Shion is carrying him through a burning fucking building no I will never be over that, and poor Shion can only interpret it as Nezumi looking down on him when in actuality it’s the truest sign that Nezumi is in L-O-V-E because in no other circumstance would he readily give up his own life for someone else (vol 8, ch 4.)

Nezumi sees Shion as a person, and despite his efforts to the contrary and what he tells himself, he ends up seeing Safu as a person too. He tries to insist "it wasn’t Safu” (vol 8, ch 1) not just for Shion, but his own sake:

>  _Safu was alive._ Was she? Had she really been? Nezumi ground his teeth. She had been alive and waiting for Shion. She had been waiting devotedly, just for him. She had been alive just to see Shion once again. And her wish had been granted.
> 
> [...]
> 
> "Then what should I have done?" Nezumi yelled. His blood, which was supposed to be frozen, boiled and raced through his body in a hot stream. "Don't you understand how she felt? She summoned us because she wanted to see you. And―and couldn't you see it was because she wanted to be saved? I don't mean escaping from the Correctional Facility. She'd already known it was impossible. That was why she wanted you at least to save her from that wretched situation. You were the last person whom she wanted to see her like that. I mean, wouldn't you feel the same? You understand, right?"
> 
> Nezumi's breathing was erratic. Shion's expression did not change. Not even a twitch of an eyebrow. The smoke stung at Nezumi's eyes.
> 
>  _We have to run. We can't waste any more time here._ His thoughts were clear, but his feet would not move. They quaked at Shion's eyes.
> 
> "Shion, I can't think of it as you do. We _were_ too late. Safu was already dead." They were his true thoughts. "You aren't looking at reality. It would have been impossible to separate her from the mother. She even said so herself: she had no body, but she was still trapped. She said it hurt, that she wanted you to set her free. She wished to be set free from that situation, from her humiliation."
> 
> He was not wrong. Shion was the one with the wrong idea. He was unable to accept the reality of losing Safu. He was trying to avert his eyes from the truth.
> 
> (vol 8, ch 3; right after this is when Nezumi puts on his villain act to get Shion to move his ass)

(here’s [two](https://crowmunculus.tumblr.com/post/124804501067/here-we-go-again-with-safus-emotional-impact-as-a) [other ](https://crowmunculus.tumblr.com/post/96764434112/ok-but-volume-8-of-the-manga-fucks-me-up-nezumi)old posts I wrote regarding Nezumi and Safu)

One of my numerous favorite things about Nezumi and Shion’s dynamic is that even when it seems like their opposing viewpoints are inherently contradictory, they’re often BOTH right and both wrong at the same time. It’s important to see people as individuals and to care about individual suffering, but it’s also important to look at the larger structural inequalities that create that suffering - it’s necessary to destroy No. 6 to free the people of the West Block, even if doing so will also bring more suffering to the people of No. 6. There is no easy solution. Shion’s third way of destroying the wall is imo the best compromise, where instead of wholesale destruction of the city and everyone who lives there it’s a destruction of the city’s corrupt government, something that can be rebuilt - unlike human lives, which once lost are lost forever. But even then the rebuilding that comes afterward is not easy and brings up even more moral quandaries where there are no fully right answers.

Nezumi sees Shion as salvation and himself as destruction, but what he’s not seeing is that _both are necessary_. This series is one long dialogue between Nezumi and Shion and their respective philosophies and the solution is reached only by incorporating elements of both. Every successful movement requires both creation and destruction; those things do not always exist in opposition to each other, and in fact cannot exist separate from each other. Nezumi can’t see that, at first, because remember, he puts everything into dichotomies. He is Bad, and Shion is Good; Safu has to be dead because she isn’t ‘alive’ anymore the way she used to be; there can be no redemption for No. 6, only a messy end. None of those statements are fully true or fully false.

For Nezumi, healing will mean moving past dichotomous thinking. It means seeing Shion as a whole, flawed person instead of an ideal, and himself as a person too. As frightening as it would be to accept that Shion isn’t this paragon of pure selflessness, it would also be freeing; it would mean the destruction of Nezumi’s worldview but only through destruction can anything new be created. If Shion isn’t fully Good, that also means that Nezumi isn’t fully Bad. It would mean that he is the sum of his actions and choices - not what he was predestined to become by his gran - and capable of change.

Another form of dichotomous thinking that Nezumi will need to move past is thinking that attachment and freedom (with “freedom” being synonymous with “happiness”) are polar opposites. Nezumi’s idea of freedom is leaving because he thinks only leaving (but only after exacting revenge) will sever himself from his negative obsessive attachment to No. 6 and with it all his associated pain. (vol 6, ch 1) It’s like he thinks out of sight, out of mind, that physically separating himself from the city will mean leaving all his hurt behind. Likewise the concept of revenge is to Nezumi this kind of sacred holy grail, this magical entity that will alleviate all of his hurt. But obviously all that trauma and grief doesn’t just disappear at the end of the series, even with Nezumi taking the _enormous_ step of casting aside his wish for bloody vengeance when the opportunity is right in front of him and instead begging Elyurias to give the city - the people of the city, and Shion - another chance to get it right.

I think he needed to leave, at the end, because he’d based his entire purpose for existing and entire concept of self around No. 6, and without that as his guidepost he has no idea who he is or what he wants. But [like I’ve said before](https://crowmunculus.tumblr.com/post/620786373701566464/but-wasnt-nezumis-decision-to-leave-and-get), he needs to be purposeful about leaving, because otherwise it’s just another form of shoving all those uncomfortable emotions in a corner and ignoring them. Or if he’s not shoving all his feelings in a corner, he’s holding too tightly onto ones that only bring him pain: for all Nezumi tries to be free of attachments, he is sure as hell negatively attached to No. 6. Nezumi is so paradoxically attached to his suffering that he even projects his own feelings of needing to hold onto it onto other people:

> "That man shouldn't have gone peacefully," Nezumi said savagely.
> 
> "Huh?"
> 
> "He should have kept suffering until he died. He should never have repented his sins and gone in tranquility. He should have loathed and cursed his unfair death, and he should have gasped his last breaths writhing in pain. Look."
> 
> Nezumi jerked his chin.
> 
> "Just look at this room. Remember what the execution chamber back there looked like. How could you leave this world peacefully after being crushed, killed, and tormented like mere insects? You can't. Of course you can't. Most people who get caught in the Hunt don't escape. They're forced to die a gruesome death. And when those dying people leave, they ought to leave strewing words of suffering and hatred everywhere. Then at least their true feelings― even if it's just deep resentment or damnation... They should never have their true feelings stolen from them. A peaceful death would be a fake imitation. Getting treated like bugs, getting abused, only to die smiling? What salvation, huh? That's just a convenient excuse. It's a low, filthy excuse. Don't you agree? There's only gruesome death here. I trust even you would be getting the picture by now, I hope?"
> 
> (vol 5, ch 2)

(Hey remember earlier in this meta, later in the series timeline, Nezumi defending helping Safu die because he empathized with her pain and wanted to help end her suffering? Yeah.)

Attachments have only ever brought Nezumi pain. It’s telling that his idea of happiness is him being untethered to anyone or anything but himself, wandering freely without getting too attached to any one place.

His attachment to Shion was painful for him, but he also secretly longed for that kind of intimate relationship (vol 4, ch 4.) In Beyond ch 4 Nezumi thinks “He could feel Shion’s warmth. He felt like this warmth was all he needed to get him through the frigid winter days“ before immediately shooting himself down because if he can’t survive on his own, he won’t survive the West Block - but he _wanted_ that warmth, that companionship.

I argue that the biggest of many reasons his attachment to Shion was so painful was the anticipatory grief from the fear of losing him, because when it comes to caring about other people, Nezumi _always_ loses. He never gets to hold onto the things that make him happy. It’s better to never let himself love anything than it is to feel the pain of losing something he loves. He doesn’t allow himself to want anything except destruction, but he finds himself wanting Shion anyway, because humans are social animals (conveniently, so are rats and mice) and the need to love and be loved is as imperative to survival as food and shelter.

It was inevitable from the day he spirited Shion out of No. 6 that he would become close with Shion - maybe it was inevitable from the night they met. Nezumi had tried to forget about Shion, but was never able to (vol 3, ch 4) and instead spent years on the alert waiting for No. 6 to move against him.

I think the problem isn’t that Nezumi doesn’t love, it’s that (if he lets himself feel it) he loves _too much._ He hates No. 6, but look how viciously he holds onto that hatred - hatred is an attachment, too. For all he tries to act detached, Nezumi clings viciously onto what little he has, good and bad alike, even as he’s simultaneously trying to cut himself away from the good.

> Nezumi thought about Shion.
> 
> Showered with love ― he probably very well had been. His recklessness, his liberality, his straightforwardness, his wide acceptance, were probably all tokens of the ample amount of love he had been given. Shion had probably never experienced what it was like to grovel for love. That was fortunate of him. But love could sometimes be reversed into its opposite. Love could attract hatred, and bear the banner for destruction.
> 
> Hopefully, the love that had raised Shion, the love that resided within Shion, would not become the chains that bound him, nor the hand that led him to death―
> 
> Nezumi deeply inhaled the fragrant smell, barely managing to prevent a sigh from escaping his lips.
> 
> (vol 3, ch 5; the implication that Nezumi in the past has had to grovel for love, presumably from his gran or Rou, makes me die a lil inside)

Look at this, I hate this, look at how utterly fucked Nezumi’s thoughts about love are. Nezumi recognizes love as a good thing - good that Shion never wanted for it - but he’s also hyper-aware that it makes you vulnerable. Compare with earlier, vol 3, ch 4:

> It was his second time being called an idiot by Shion. Both times, Nezumi wasn't able to predict Shion's explosion of anger. The first time, Nezumi had told Shion, 'Don't cry for other people. Don't get into fights for other people. Fight and cry only for yourself.' Shion had said that he didn't understand. It was true, he hadn't understood. For this time, again, Shion had burst out into the darkness for a stranger. Casting aside the reason which warned him of the risks, he had gone running into the darkness. It was dangerous. Very dangerous. Nezumi had been prepared for Shion to become shackles that bound his ankles. But there was also the opposite. There was a possibility that he himself would become the fetters that bound Shion's wrists.
> 
> This is why―
> 
> Nezumi averted his gaze from the boy in front of him.
> 
>  _This is why humans are troublesome. The more you involve yourself with them, the tighter the shackles become. They hinder free movement. It becomes harder to live only for yourself. Maybe we should never have met. Maybe one day, Shion, you'd come to think so._

Actual video footage of me reading this scene:

A few paragraphs before that last quote was Nezumi reflecting on how he was never able to forget what Shion did for him, even when he tried, and then asking Shion if he still thought helping Nezumi on the night they met was the right thing to do "Even if you knew that your own ruin would be waiting beyond it." Nezumi later tries to play it off, say he only asked Shion on a whim because he was bored, but it’s clear that he feels guilty for “ruining” Shion’s life and wonders if Shion would be better without him.

It’s not just that loving someone else is frightening because of the potential to lose them, it’s also that it’s frightening to _be_ loved because of how vulnerable it makes the person who loves you. When you love someone and it’s mutual, you both have an incredible amount of power over each other and an enormous capacity to hurt each other. (Remember also Nezumi’s fears that he’s corrupting Shion.) Mature love, the kind that lasts, is about accepting the possibility of pain and loving someone anyway. It’s about trusting that even though they _could_ hurt you, they won’t. And Nezumi is definitely not capable of that yet.

Nezumi doesn’t know how to safely be vulnerable because vulnerability means he gets hurt. The only times that’s not been true for him have been with Shion, who doesn’t take his vulnerability as a reason to hurt him, but instead as a reason to protect him. Nezumi can’t wrap his head around that, even though he instinctively responds the same way when Shion is hurting. It’s so unlike all his other social experiences in living memory.

ANOTHER ICONIC FAV SCENE:

> "If he's so precious to you that you don't wanna lose him," Inukashi said steadily, "protect him to the very end. And do whatever it takes to protect him, you idiot, no matter how humiliating it is. You think you can save face, huh? Keep it all hidden, and take care of it all on your own? Stop fooling yourself."
> 
> (vol 3, ch 4)

Despite being raised by dogs, Inukashi has some solid advice about human attachments. Nezumi needs to learn how to let go of the things that cause him pain and hold onto what he loves - because what he’s doing all throughout canon is the opposite!

Instead, what he tries to do at the end of the series when he leaves is to get rid of _all_ his attachments, as if they are all made equal. This does not say promising things about his ability to form positive attachments in the future. Traveling aimlessly where the only thing he is responsible for is himself, where the only person he has to answer to is himself, is not in itself a bad thing - but I don’t think it’s something Nezumi would be happy doing for the rest of his life. Nezumi is a very goal-driven person. He needs to have a purpose because he doesn’t know who he is without one. Whenever I think of Nezumi at the end of the series, his vengeance complete, the old No. 6 vanquished, I think of this scene tbh:

He leaves because he had always planned to leave. (vol 6, ch 1) Originally, he had no intention of ever returning. In ch 4 of Beyond, with his talk of Shion being “a person of the past” it sounds like he might still not intend on returning, despite his promise to Shion (which, by the way, uses the same verb for “promise” that is typically used in [WEDDING VOWS](https://crowmunculus.tumblr.com/post/119147724457/listenforthelove-35-leukothea-fun-fact-about).) But I think he’s full of shit! Nezumi takes his promises seriously. It’s not coincidence that he uses the exact same phrasing in his note to Karan as what he tells Shion after the promise kiss: Reunion will come (再会を必ず.) [Here’s yet another old (MUCH shorter) post I wrote about Nezumi and promises](https://crowmunculus.tumblr.com/post/125956552342/ok-but-in-happier-news-lets-look-at-narrative)

Just as Nezumi had tried and failed to forget Shion after their first meeting, he will continue to do so as he wanders the world. When he was about to finally be totally free of all attachments, he went and created a tether to Shion with his vow. Now he has an obligation to return and tie up that loose end.

And then there’s the last scene of Beyond, which has had me wailing and gnashing my teeth for nearly eight years now:

> “Ah, you have high regard for him, I see. And you must know the man―he is a man, right?―you must know him well?”
> 
> _In a sense, I know him more than anyone else. And in a sense, I know nothing at all._
> 
> “And you also believe in him.”
> 
> _I do believe in him. Nothing in the world would be worth believing if I couldn’t believe in Shion. I believe in him. But I was also afraid of him, wasn’t I?_
> 
> [...]
> 
> “One last thing. People change, boy. That man you believe in will change, too. Anyone who stands at the top of a state will change. If he doesn’t change, he’ll be destroyed. You remember that.”
> 
> Nezumi touched the knife attached to his belt. _Maybe if I finish this man off here... if I finish him off, I would nip a bud that would otherwise bring harm to Shion._
> 
> His fingers itched. Nezumi clasped his itching fingers.
> 
> _I’ll never forgive you for harming, much less killing, someone for me._
> 
> _Nezumi, don’t kill him. Don’t commit a crime for my sake._
> 
> Shion was holding his arm back and pleading with him desperately.
> 
> _Nezumi, don’t kill him._
> 
> _That’s right. That’s what you would say. I know you would say that and stop me. You’ve always been, and always will be, a naive do-gooder._
> 
> _Shion...._
> 
> “Well, if the fates bring us together, let us meet again.” The man mounted the horse with a sweep, and dug his heels in. The grey horse gave a whinny and started off. The man and the horse disappeared in a cloud of dust.
> 
> The wind blew, making the bushes sway.
> 
> The clouds covered the sky as the land enrobed itself in the darkness of nighttime.
> 
> _Shion._
> 
> A tiny crack appeared in the clouds, revealing deep purple sky.
> 
> A solitary star twinkled.
> 
> Far off into that sky was No. 6.
> 
> Nezumi yielded to the wind as he gazed intently up at that star.
> 
> (Beyond, ch 4)

Let’s party like it’s 2012 and add even MORE reaction images to this meta:

For all Nezumi is ~~lying to~~ telling himself that Shion is a person of his past, he is still clearly looking out for Shion’s wellbeing, he still cares about Shion’s opinion of him even when Shion isn’t there to see him. Nezumi categorically does not like killing - it’s his last resort. But the only thing stopping him from killing Shion’s deadbeat anime villain dad to protect Shion is knowing that it’s not what Shion would want him to do. His drive to protect Shion, even after six months of separation, is such that he is willing to kill for Shion, he was willing to _die_ for Shion. He gave up on - or at least compromised - his dreams of revenge because he believed not in the people of No. 6, but in Shion (vol 9, ch 4.)

Nezumi loves Shion and he wanted to be loved by Shion, but he doesn’t know _how_. He doesn’t know how to be a person who can love and be loved. He doesn’t know how to be a _person_ , period, beyond thinking of himself as a weapon. Nezumi is afraid of Shion, and sometimes confuses that fear for hate; Nezumi loves Shion, but doesn’t know how to disentangle love from pain, which historically to him are experienced as being the same thing. 

.

So I actually have no fucking clue how to conclude this mess properly, but here’s to trying. tl;dr Nezumi healing from his trauma and guilt means

1\. Moving past dichotomous thinking, and with it the idea of himself as fully Bad instead of being a whole, complex person deserving of love and capable of loving others.

2\. Seeing _Shion_ as a whole, complex person capable of making his own decisions and mistakes.

3\. Forgiving himself and making amends where he can, and accepting that he has always done the best he could at the time with the resources he had.

4\. Creating closure for his loose ends and a new sense of purpose for his life - he needs to fulfill his vow of reunion and decide what to do next from there.

5\. LETTING HIMSELF GRIEVE, this is imperative, it’s hard and it sucks but unresolved grief will haunt you until you do something about it, and if you’re not deliberate about it the “doing something about it” will be something you’re not doing voluntarily and won’t enjoy. Nezumi thinks that leaving No. 6 will free him of his anger and his grief, but it’s not that easy to escape past trauma. He needs to reach a place that is physically and emotionally safe where he can actually let himself _feel_ everything he’s bottled up so long, all the emotions other than anger, and find peace with it.

6\. Accepting that attachments are not inherently bad, and are in fact necessary for happiness; that even if there is always the threat of pain and loss, it’s still worthwhile, and that the fear of loss coexists with the bravery to love anyway is what gives love meaning.

In conclusion:


End file.
